Reality Winner has the perfect name for a digital-era martyr – memorable and freighted, seems fake but isn’t, deeply ironic. Late-night shows had a field day in 2017 with that moniker, for a whistleblower who tried to expose the truth about Russian interference in the 2016 election and was made into a bogeyman by cable news and a meal by the Trump administration.
The title of Winner, the second film about her within a year (the other being HBO’s Reality), is often mentioned, especially when discussing late-night segments. The movie, directed by Susanna Fogel and written by Kerry Howley, seems to take pleasure in verbalizing the thoughts of the audience. Instead of implying it, the film explicitly states what a traditional biopic would suggest – that this is a story about how she leaked evidence of government deception to the public. The opening voiceover from Emilia Jones’ character, Reality (Coda), confirms this: “Yeah, they don’t appreciate it when you do that.”
Such jazzy flourishes – fourth-wall breaks of cheeky voiceover confessionals, the subject building a snappy rapport with the audience – are now an expectation unto themselves, echoing the peppy blend of fact, interpretation and personality employed in such loose biopics as Molly’s Game and I, Tonya. As in those films, Reality is an infamous woman with more of a story to tell. Ironically enough, Winner’s forthrightness sometimes gets in the way of its ability to show it.
Just to clarify, Winner, which was first shown at the Sundance film festival, is not a rehash of Reality, the movie adaptation of Tina Satter’s highly praised play that depicted the transcript of Winner’s intense interrogation by the FBI in May 2017. That particular film, featuring Sydney Sweeney, was a gripping and powerful thriller, highlighting the dangerous power of law enforcement to manipulate and weaken an individual. Winner adopts a broader perspective, chronicling pivotal moments in her life from childhood to her four-year imprisonment, shedding light on the reasons behind her political actions that she herself regrets did not garner public attention.
The recurring theme is that life has always had difficult challenges and conflicts, according to the main character. She was influenced by her father Ron (played by Zach Galifianakis), who was an unemployed aspiring writer with a cynical political viewpoint during her childhood. Ron taught her a valuable lesson from the significant event of her youth, 9/11: violence could be avoided if people took the time to understand each other. Despite being an unusually mature and intelligent individual even as a child, she starts learning Arabic on her own as a teenager in Texas. This fact is later used against her in court to argue that she had terrorist sympathies. Her mother Billie (played by Connie Britton), a social worker, and her more conventional sister Brittany (underused Kathryn Newton) are both puzzled by her unconventional behavior.
The movie efficiently presents essential details through snappy dialogue and casual, spirited storytelling presumably based on the main character, whom Howley featured in a 2017 article for New York magazine. Being sought out by the military for her exceptional language abilities, Reality foregoes college and directly joins the US air force, where she acquires proficiency in Dari and Pashto and pursues a deployment to Afghanistan. However, she ultimately finds herself stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland, translating intercepted conversations between individuals – sometimes families with children – located thousands of miles away, in order to assist drone operators in identifying targets.
The winner’s moments of storytelling effectively portray her mental anguish. In an attempt to cope with overwhelming feelings of guilt and negative news, she begins a relationship with a bartender named Andre (played by Danny Ramirez) and takes up a rigorous exercise routine. One notable aspect of the film is the costume design by Anastasia Magoutas, which captures the tomboyish and anti-fashion style of the mid-2010s. Eventually, she becomes a private contractor for the National Security Agency. Despite its short runtime of 103 minutes, Winner’s story moves along quickly, covering her disillusionment, motives, and execution of her crime, which are surprisingly mundane and understandable in context. However, the treatment she receives from the government is truly shocking and appalling.
Howley is a captivating and darkly humorous writer of nonfiction, and her screenplay brims with the kind of secretive asides and honest confessions of a close friend; her portrayal of Winner, combined with Jones’s adept performance as a charmingly blunt bleeding heart, creates a strong partnership. However, there’s a nagging sense that this tale is a bit too tidy, a bit too cleverly twisted into a typically unconventional biographical film. While Reality’s connections with her father and Andre are poignantly depicted in brief glimpses, there’s a perplexing shallowness to Brittany and Billie. In the puzzle of the real Reality Winner, there are noticeable missing pieces, more details to fill in.
However, when it comes to popular nonfiction, Winner stands out as one of the more impressive works, both entertaining and insightful. Despite being unfairly defeated for a long time, Reality Winner ultimately emerges victorious in this portrayal.
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The movie “Winner” is being featured at the Sundance Film Festival and is looking for a distributor.
Source: theguardian.com
